Contractors Almanac

All Opinions are my own. For OEMs, it’s a windfall. For resellers, a reckoning. For advisors, an opening. On April 16, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14271,  “Ensuring Commercial, Cost-Effective Solutions in Federal Contracts.”  The order didn’t just encourage agencies to prioritize commercial technology—it made it federal policy. Within 60 days, agencies were directed to audit their open solicitations and justify any planned acquisition that veered away from commercially available, off-the-shelf solutions. It was the strongest public-sector signal in over a decade that government-unique technology buying needed to stop being the default. Two weeks later, on April 29, 2025, the General Services Administration launched the OneGov Strategy, giving the executive order form and function. Where EO 14271 articulated policy, OneGov operationalized it. It provided agencies and vendors with a playbook: leverage GSA as the centralized buyer, reduce acquisition duplication,...

In a move that sent shockwaves through contracting shops and caused at least three procurement lawyers to faint into their redlined PDFs, the White House has announced a sweeping overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The stated goal? “To remove outdated, duplicative, and unnecessarily burdensome regulations”—which, depending on your perspective, is either a long-overdue spring cleaning or a harbinger of 1,000 ambiguous mod clauses. For those of us in capture management, this is either great news or the beginning of a very long compliance migraine. Imagine telling your BD lead that the 1,986-page rulebook we’ve all been quoting like scripture is now getting redlined like a first-year proposal writer’s draft. Suddenly, all those years of memorizing FAR 15.305 like bedtime poetry might not buy you the same bragging rights. But here’s the kicker: this isn’t just a bureaucratic haircut. This is a full-on style change. The executive order mandates the removal of any FAR provi...

By someone who remembers when a DoD RFP had the word “simplified” in it, unironically. All opinions are my own. It started, as most federal shakeups do, with a signature, a pen, and a podium flanked by too many flags. On April 9, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed   Executive Order 14192 : “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base.” If that sounds like a lot of words to say “DoD, go faster,” you’re not wrong. But in true Trumpian fashion, it wasn’t just a policy. It was a statement. A dare. A late-stage sequel to acquisition reform efforts going back to Goldwater-Nichols, with less red tape and more red meat. “Cancel it. Fix it. Or move it to the private sector.” At the heart of EO 14192 is a not-so-gentle command: The Pentagon is to  review every Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) —you know, the big ones, the billion-dollar behemoths that fund entire congressional districts—and determine if they’re behind schedule or ov...

All Opinions Expressed are my own. Let’s cut to the chase: in today’s federal contracting environment, if you’re not on a major GWAC or IDIQ, you’re standing on the beach with a surfboard while everyone else is halfway to Maui. Once upon a time, you could build a healthy book of business through standalone contracts, open market buys, and maybe a few GSA Schedules sprinkled on top. But those days are fading like the memory of FedTeDS. Agencies are streamlining. Category Management is gospel. And  Best-in-Class contracts —you know, the ones blessed by OMB—are becoming  less optional and more existential . So how do you get in on the action? Below is a (semi-sarcastic but still strategic) guide to positioning your business to win long-term GWACs and IDIQs—because in this market, it’s either vehicle up or vanish into the 8(a) backlog. 1.  Start Before You Think You Should If you’re waiting for the Draft RFP to “start capture,” that’s adorable. The real players started  ...

Opinions expressed are my own. Let’s begin with a universal truth: color team reviews are a bit like family holidays. Everyone pretends they’re excited, someone shows up late, someone else cries, and by the end, nobody agrees on what actually happened—but somehow we all make it through and call it a success. In theory, the “Science of Color” review model—Pink, Red, Gold, and White Glove—is a finely tuned instrument of proposal orchestration. In practice? It’s a game of Proposal Whac-A-Mole where you’re juggling four other bids, three color teams, a reviewer who thinks bullet points are unprofessional, and someone who rewrites your entire volume in Comic Sans. Welcome to the high-volume capture shop. Let’s break this down. Pink Team: Where Hope Springs Eterna Pink Team is the stage where everyone  says  they want constructive feedback. What they  mean  is: “Please validate my genius and offer light praise.” It’s the first draft review—more skeleton than sculpture. In ...

All opinions are my own. Let me tell you a story. It’s about two bidders. One brought a samurai sword to the fight. The other brought a butter knife from the break room. They both lost. Welcome to the thrilling world of  Best-Value Tradeoff vs. LPTA evaluations , where your proposal strategy must either sing like Pavarotti or survive a knife fight in a dark alley on a government spreadsheet. Let’s start with LPTA, or  Lowest Price Technically Acceptable —the government’s version of shopping the clearance bin at Marshall’s. This is where Uncle Sam says, “I don’t care if you’re Mozart or a guy with a kazoo—can you play the notes on the page and do it for less than your neighbor?” It's literally a race to the bottom. In LPTA,  your proposal strategy is clear : no fluff, no opera, no Ferraris. You write lean, mean, and absolutely squeaky clean. You answer the requirements. No more. No less. If you’re tempted to throw in something “innovative,” remember: this is not a talent s...